Standards in English education: An enduring historical issue

Abstract

This article closely examines the development of education in England, taking special account of educational standards — of the official measurable kind, but also the perceived kind — in the various sectors of education. It argues that, today, and in the past, the ‘problems’ associated with education standards mostly relate to a ‘long tail’ of underperforming schools serving urban areas and attended by relatively underprivileged children. At the other end of the scale, it is suggested that England’s leading schools, both in the public and private sectors, remain the subject of admiration. The same remains true of England’s leading, and typically oldest, universities, which occupy a more privileged position than institutions chartered in the relatively recent past. The article presents a story of persistent unequal educational opportunities over time, which, worryingly, does not seem to be improving in the second decade of the twenty-first century.